April 19, 2006

19.04.2006 - feeling productive

Recount of previous day

Yesterday was a lazy kinda day - I was feeling mentally tired so I spent most of the day reading Fallen Dragon. Dad bought me excellent food so I was well fed through all the day. Also met the other blood specialist who will be covering me when Dr Trotman is away. Couldn't quite remember her name.. Dr Mariana? The food lady is Maria I think.. damn it now I am just plain confused! Emma will know. I have a terrible memory when it comes to names.

Cindy, the dietitian did come and see me - instead of potato/rice they will try and give me cooked vegetables like broccoli and stuff. Also going to be given some soy milk which will hopefully provide the calcium minus the indigestion :-) All in all food is being sorted with extra sandwiches/sustagen being delivered for me at supper.

Got my second last "heavy" chemotherapy too - bit of numbness but no nausea this time! Though my toes and fingers are feeling a bit numb - something I am told to expect. Seems to be going away though.

Time 6:32am

Stomach is like a clock - 30minutes past midnight and I was up and hungry. Ate 2 of Mum's sushi, went back to sleep at 1am or so. 5:30am, woke up again due to hunger, ate the other 2 sushi and been up till now playing with xfig. Still a bit peckish, only got 3 slices of Salada left though :-/ Another hour until breakfast! Blah.

Feeling productive today, so lets see what I can do...

Time 9:48am

Spoke to soon - the nausea kicked in about 8am despite all the drugs - seems inevitable regardless :-) Thankfully it is over now.

Dr Trotman, Vincent and Christian came to see me just then. While a preliminary search shows it is unlikely for me to find a fully matched adult donor, there are many 5/6 matches for cord blood for me. Hopefully this will put family's mind at rest a bit. Oh and the other blood specialist is Dr Nicole. I hope I got the spelling right. A physician is also going to come and see me so I can do some light exercise in the gym to keep up my muscle mass. Yay :-) A team of liver and bone people are also going to see me because of the medicine I take could give me liver/bone mass problems.

Had a nice talk with Christian (sp?), a very kind German graduate student. He told me the protocol I am on is in fact developed in the same institute where he studied. He even gave me the names of the professors who developed it! I hope he enjoys his study/holiday here in Australia before he goes back and become a practicing doctor.

Got my HLA type too.. here are some random numbers:

A24, 33B27, 62DR4, 14

The damn IE CSS bug is still around. Blah! Need to somehow fix that. Feeling right as rain again, so lets get back to being productive...

Time 3:28pm

Being productive is hard when you can't keep away from the porcelain throne for more than a 15 minutes :-/ Ironic, the day they increase my food is the day I get hit with this side effect. I only hope it doesn't last :-/